The future of live streaming as decoded by The Drum's LinkedIn group
Every Monday, our award-winning editorial team puts their heads together to produce a topic for our LinkedIn group to discuss.
Our LinkedIn community talk about what's next
This week, we wanted to talk about the presence and evolution of live streaming.
The Olympics have proven that live streaming is quickly becoming the consumer's medium of choice when it comes to watching sports with NBC claiming that over one billion minutes have been watched - a number that surpasses that of the 2012 London Games.
When it comes to watching sporting prowess, live streaming presents a problem in terms of atmosphere with the bifurcation of the audience. Additionally, VR is preparing itself to impact media consumption in ways we had never thought possible.
Here's what our LinkedIn community thought on the topic.
VR will take live-streaming experiential
The next and possibly the most important era of virtual reality is nearly upon us so it's only right that marketers and consumers feel that it will be the next step for live streaming.
"Sports lends itself so well to live social streaming, and offers and extension for those that can't attend or be at the venue where the event is taking place. What will be most interesting, is how this get's incorporated with VR in the years ahead. Most notably, where you have a sold-out sports event and you sell a virtual ticket that is like being in the stadium and watching, with full on immersion etc."
"I think virtual reality and augmented reality will help to decide whether live streaming sticks with users on social platforms. The simple reason is that 360-degree video and AR are more easily implemented on mobile apps, with Facebook and YouTube already making great strides towards a simple way to experience video beyond a fixed viewpoint."
Consumers no longer want to pay for exclusive content
Pay-per-view content for the sports teams is no longer what consumers are interested in. Exclusive commentaries and behind the scenes footage have become part and parcel of an Internet experience.
"As part of this work we commissioned a survey and, overwhelmingly, no-one was in the slightest bit interested in paying their club to view 'premium' content and most were running ad-blockers too."
The perfect package
Seb Joseph, news editor at The Drum gave his opinion on the direction he feels the technology will move in.
Although most networks will encourage their viewers to interact with the shows they’re watching online via a hashtag, who’s to say that it won’t be easier to just house the whole experience - the show or the game and the social interaction- in one place like a Facebook or Twitter
For the rest of the discussion, join The Drum on LinkedIn and make sure you engage with our company page whilst you're there.